[LabComm] Carole James addresses NDP Provincial Council

[BC NDP Newswire]

Carole James addresses NDP Provincial Council



Opposition Leader Carole James addressed the Provincial Council of the B.C. New Democratic Party Saturday in Vancouver.

Following is the full text of her remarks.

--

It's great to be here.

As you all know, I had quite a summer.

I faced a personal challenge.

And I faced it doing what we do best as New Democrats.

We don't shrink from a challenge. We stand up. We face it.

We don't give in to it. We beat it.

And that's exactly what I did this summer.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support and your kind words.

I'm energized by my fight with cancer.

More determined than ever.

I'm ready to tackle the challenges we face together as British Columbians.

Challenges that the Gordon Campbell government has chosen to ignore.

In the face of child poverty and homelessness; an uncertain future in forest
communities; a skills training shortage and a research and development deficit...

The Campbell government appears content to sit back.

To rest.

Gordon Campbell won't even call the Legislature back to work.  

He says there's nothing for elected politicians to do.

That debating issues in the Legislature is nothing but "busy work".

Well, British Columbians expect more from the government they pay for.

They expect their leaders to look ahead, to plan for our community's future.

The People's House doesn't sit to engage in busy work.

The legislature sits to fulfill promises made by the government.

And it's the democratic way the government is held accountable to the people who
pay for it.

What kind of government can so undermine public health care,

Can engineer the highest child poverty rate,

the highest number of families living in poverty,

the largest gap between rich and poor,

the fastest rising tuition fee rates in the country,

What sort of government can look at all that and say, job well done?

Mission accomplished?

Patients are being handed $1300 bills to jump the public queue for
medically-necessary treatment bought and paid for by BC taxpayers...

But the government won't be around this fall to answer for it.


While the streets of our neighbourhoods increasingly become the only home for the growing number of citizens Mr. Campbell has decided to leave behind...

Friends of the BC Liberal Party are being handed millions in taxpayer dollars.

>From lucrative advertising contracts for Liberal-friendly firms, to Liberal insiders pocketing money meant to help BC's most needy.

And the bill to BC's taxpayers for the 2010 Olympics soars to nearly $2 Billion.

There's a lot Mr. Campbell must answer for:

He's failing patients.

He's failing the most vulnerable.

And he's failing ordinary working people.

Under Gordon Campbell our province is failing future generations.

We have an enormous skills training shortage.

We have the country's fastest rising tuition fees.

Gordon Campbell is putting opportunity beyond reach for thousands of young British Columbians.

BC is the gateway to the Asian Pacific economy, yet we're falling far behind
Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario when it comes to reaching out to those markets.

Mr. Campbell and his government appear to be adrift.

He appears to have run out of ideas.

There's no real plan for health care beyond user fees and further privatization.

There's still no business plan for the Olympics, yet the bill for 2010 goes higher and higher.

There's no plan for our future economic prosperity beyond riding a short-term,
commodity-driven boom.

The Campbell government should answer for all of this.

But instead of answering to British Columbians, Mr. Campbell shut down the work of the Legislature.

Rather than debate the future of public health care in BC, Mr. Campbell is busy
working to make our province the for-profit medicine mecca of Canada.

That's right. According to private health care providers, BC is hands down the
best place in the country to make a buck selling medical care to those who can
afford it.

It is an old story, one we all hoped we'd never see again in Canada:

If you have the money, you get better health care.

If you can't afford it, you go to the back of the line;

And after years of undermining patient access to timely public health care, it's a very long line.

A health care system in chaos is what happens when you don't have a plan.

Because after more than five years in power,

After making promise after promise to provide better health care,

Premier Campbell finally unveiled his big health care idea last Spring.

He's going to have a conversation with British Columbians.

But ordinary people waiting for necessary treatment don't need another
"dialogue".

Patients waiting months for medical services don't need political gimmicks.

They want, and they deserve, the health care they were promised.

Friends,

We're not letting Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberal party get away with making BC the privatized health care capital of Canada.

We're holding their feet to the fire.

Maybe that's why Mr. Campbell decided not to come to work this Fall.

After promising his government would be at work in the Legislature,

And after promising accountability,

He turned his back on the citizens of this province.

That's why I've called on Premier Campbell to reverse his decision to cancel the
work of the Legislature this Fall.

A reminder to the Premier that his government has some work to do.

Promises he made that he hasn't honoured.

Last Spring, Mr. Campbell promised to fight the scourge of Crystal Meth.

His government has done little to fulfill that promise.

If he wants, the NDP has bill that can do that.

He promised amendments this year to strengthen and expand requirements for
criminal-record checks to better protect children at risk.

Call the Legislature back and I pledge my Party's support to do exactly that.

We need a Mental Health Advocate so the people suffering from mental illness have a voice.

We need a debate on the future of forest-dependent communities.

We need a debate on the future of our universal, public health care.

And we need a plan, a debate on the government's failure to manage our economy for the future, beyond riding out the wave of a global commodity boom.

The NDP is ready and determined to serve British Columbians.

I'm committed to doing what the people of this province sent us here to do.

We've put forward a number of positive solutions to the issues holding our
province back.

If the Premier has run out of ideas, I'll lend him some of mine.

Gordon Campbell says there is nothing to do.

I disagree.

Now is not the time to drift.

Now is the time to fulfill the promise of this province, to expand opportunity for all its citizens.

And now is the time to prepare for our province's future.

Thank you.

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